50 Top Tools for Coaching

This book is a gift to coaches--50 different protocols, questioning techniques, activities, exercises, reflection prompts and more to broaden your methods for interacting with clients. You might find a tip for improving one of your current tools or an entirely new idea that will work just right for that client that doesn't "get" your favorite one. I particularly liked some subtle variations to my favorite problem-solving tool and a new method for helping a client get clear about goals. And, if you think one of the tools in the book seems crazy or off-base, think for a moment as to who you know that would love it--it might be worth a try.

Thanks, NetGalley, for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quite specialised book for a specialist audience, yet even the more curious generalist could get something out of it if they try. This book is effectively a secret look into the toolkit of a coach, giving 50 top tools that can help transform a coaching situation.

The authors set out to provide the reader with the right mix of techniques, preparative aids and analytics assistance to really provide a powerful “coaching experience” for clients. You may consider yourself to be a top-flight coach already, but any elite sports trainer will tell you, keeping an eye on what other experts do can yield benefits as, at this level, even a marginal improvement can move mountains. For the rest of us, this book will help you up your game.

There is something for everyone; maybe you need to tighten up your provision of the relationship, perhaps you must work on increasing your client's confidence and enhancing their performance or maybe you are not so hot on developing a leadership style. From start to finish, you are given it all. You still have to implement it, react to the information and deliver. This is a coach for a coach, in other words. A guide, not a rigid template.

If you don’t know what you are doing then either you are a coach who needs a lot more practical help and education or a general reader; here this book might be a bit too overwhelming but perseverance and a positive attitude can pay off. For those who are more experienced in the art of coaching, it might be a little goldmine.

That’s it really. Short and sweet. It seems to do what it says on the tin and then some more. It can either deliver major renovation assistance to your coaching skillset or just let you further polish an already polished operation. Either way, what do you have to fear?

50 Top Tools for Coaching (3ed), written by Ro Gorell & Gilllian Jones and published by Kogan Page. ISBN 9780749473440. YYYYY

Whenever I pick up a book of this nature, I am not expecting to read it with a view to embracing everything contained within the pages. What I am looking for are pointers and ideas that can be used as tools for specific occasions or to challenge my own methods and maybe make more minor adjustments. This book has certainly done that and is worthy of a place on your bookshelf.

Good information.